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Merkel to host Ukraine summit on Wednesday

German chancellor Angela Merkel will host a meeting of the so-called Normandy format about Ukraine on Wednesday, it was announced on Tuesday. French president Francois Hollande, Ukraine's Petro Poroshenko and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin will discuss the implementation of the Minsk agreement to end the war in eastern Ukraine.

Central European countries say they have "nothing to hide" on rule of law issues - while justice commissioner Vera Jourova said they should agree to the Commission's controversial budget plans on rule of law conditionality.

Giovanni Buttarelli, the European data protection supervisor, says the EU-US data sharing pact known as Privacy Shield will play an increasingly minor role given the general data protection regulation.